Saturday, 4 January 2014

Calistoga CA to Tulare CA (267 miles)

We left Calistoga at 9:45 a.m. The first town you go through after leaving Calistoga, when heading south towards Napa is St. Helena. Super cool town and they have a great restaurant that has been featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives (by Guy Fieri). Long before this show, like in 2003, we were actually at this restaurant with our good friends, the Rossi family, on one of their son's go-kart racing adventures. Josh will remember that trip well!! Here it is again!!

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Didn't take long to leave wine country. Pretty much dry, agricultural area. Lots of vineyards to start with then you go into city and then walnuts, pistachios, almonds, veggies and on and on!! Oh, and more nuts!! This park is located on Hwy 99, just 46 miles south of Fresno. It's funny because in my career at Guardian Transport for 10 years, we sent SO many trucks on this route for pick-ups in Lodi, Modesto, Turlock, Tracy (right Dwight and Mike??) It was interesting to see what all those drivers saw. Just old memories.......We arrived here in Tulare at 2:45 p.m. Really, it wasn't bad at all, just a bit boring. We actually took a myriad of highways. Thank goodness for the Garmin GPS unit. You could do it without it but this made it SO much easier. For example, this is our route: Hwy 29 to Hwy 80 to Hwy 680 to Hwy 580 to Hwy 205 to at last Hwy 99!! That was a ton of interchanges, all well marked and easy, but if you were just reading a map, you would need your reading glasses for sure, and I did, even with the GPS!!Nice little park. Sun & Fun RV Park. Don't get all excited because it actually sounds a titch better than it is but we can't complain. We got our Passport America price of $18.50 and SUPER clean laundry, bathroom and amenities room (which for us is a delight to do dishes in!!) Pool is there but I suspect it is not heated right now. There is a train about 1/2 block away, which seems to like to blow the whistle WAY more now that it is dark out - just sayin'.....

One guy walked by and told us that "...well, you have to start somewhere with an RV".

It took us a moment to realize he figured we had just entered the RV market and this was all we had for the time being. We straightened him out pretty quickly. Don't think he is a convert to small VW's though!! Oh well, we are a limited crowd for sure!!

Took these pictures for our kids. Not sure why but I thought it was funny,

painted on the side of a truck canopy here - yup, high class is us!!

Oh, the trailer is Chugger Too.....just so you know!!

Tomorrow we are headed for Thermal, CA (sounds warm, right?) It is by the HUGE inland lake called the Salton Sea. You can google it if you like but we hope to show you lots tomorrow and the day after (if it's a nice place to stay at!). It is about 308 miles from here. We will have the handy, dandy crockpot fired up again for the 3rd or 4th time since we left Vancouver. Tonight we had turkey stew with pasta and veggies & fresh bread!! Yummy!!

So, goodnight from us to you all. Love to our family (....really missing Gus) and friends!!Peace...Thought for the Day:Two things define you. Your patience when you have nothing and your attitude when you have everything....